


Stone Skies

by Blue_Mistfall



Series: Gem YouTuber AU [6]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: All egos are gems, Child!Amy Nelson, Child!Ethan Nestor, Child!Felix Kjellberg - Freeform, Child!Mark Fischbach, Damaged Gem, Fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23854573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Mistfall/pseuds/Blue_Mistfall
Summary: One fateful day the skies turn black... or rather blocked with a barrier which goes on expanding. The Gems and their human friends set off to finding out what's happening.
Series: Gem YouTuber AU [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643341
Kudos: 4





	Stone Skies

That’s strange, Mark thought, rolling over. Usually the sunlight would strike him in the eyes in the morning at this time of year, but today the situation was completely opposite: on the contrary, not a single sunbeam would appear. He sat up in his bed, and his heart sank: he couldn’t see anything outside, as if his room was ripped out of existence and thrown into nothing. Nah, should read less sci-fi before sleep, Mark thought, attempting to return to reality. The reason appeared to be some kind of a pitch black platform soaring over the town at the height of about a mile, for normal blue sky could be seen near its edges. And this platform was slowly but surely expanding.  
Gems, Mark thought. Should be their kind of action… No, those couldn’t be them. Gems had strange logic and liked experimenting, but they would’ve never made a whole town their lab! Having forgotten about his plans to properly catch some ZZZ’s at the weekend, Mark hastily tidied himself up and dashed to the kitchen just to find out he was alone at home. Excellent. He checked his phone and found a message from his mother. “Stay home, Mark, and do not go anywhere.” Yeah, I’m totally gonna do that, Mark thought to himself and glanced out of the window. Of course. The crowds had already started to gather at the main square.  
“No thanks,” Mark said aloud and returned to reality once more. His wish to escape house and get to the Gems was there, but how was he going to fulfill it? He was not a spy or some kind of Mission Impossible guy to sneak across almost the whole town and stay unnoticed, and it was not a stealth game with at least one second chance… Mark grumpily chewed on a toast, thinking that eating would give him some food for thought, and almost choked on it when a head in a bowl hat popped from the window – upside down.  
“Jameson!” Mark exclaimed, opening it. The named one beamed and climbed into the room. “What are you doing here? How did you?”  
Jameson smiled even wider and extracted his weapon (or a personal item, for it was not much of a weapon): a cane umbrella. The gem on his palm lit up again, showing the word holograms, for it was his way of speaking:  
[I MAY NOT BE A FIGHTER, BUT I AM A GOOD HIDER. THIS UMBRELLA IS ABLE TO HIDE ME NOT ONLY FROM THE RAIN.]  
He approved this statement by opening his umbrella and vanishing from sight while holding it over his head. But then it became clear that he didn’t turn invisible, being more of a chameleon instead: Mark could see his blurry outline.  
“Awesome,” Mark stated. Jameson hid his tool and gave a little bow. “Do you know what is going on? I mean… is that a freaking spaceship or else?”  
Jameson shook his head.  
[OUR DIAMONDS WOULD NEVER ALLOW SUCH THING TO HAPPEN. YOU KNOW THEIR POLICY: LAYING LOW. AND THOSE CAN’T BE THE SUPREME DIAMONDS.]  
“Are you sure? As far as Jack of Diamonds and Black Diamond told me, the supreme ones are… not the nicest persons in existence.”  
[I AGREE. BUT THIS IS NOT THEIR APPROACH. FIRST OF ALL, THEIR SPACESHIPS LOOK DIFFERENT AND ARE FAR NOT AS HUGE. I’VE STUDIED THE MATERIALS FROM S34N’S AND GOOGLE’S DATABASE.]  
“Then… any ideas who could’ve caused it?” Mark asked. Jameson shook his head and shrugged. “Anyway, staying here would not be an option. Can you take me to the Diamonds?”  
[I DON’T THINK THAT IT WILL BE SENSIBLE FOR YOU TO COME.]  
“Naaaaah! Let’s be honest, Jameson: you wouldn’t have come just to tell me that you know nothing!” Mark shot out. “Besides, remember that occasion when the Diamonds were hidden in a church? Bim, Marv and Anti would’ve never gotten them out if it weren’t for Felix!”  
[YES. YOU’RE RIGHT. I DOUBTED IF YOU WOULD COME.]  
“Of course I would.” Mark made up what he thought to be a charming grin, but his heart was pounding like a bell. “Bet Jackie’s recruiting Ethan at this very moment.”  
The last statement was almost correct, for when he and Jameson arrived to the Gem residence (Jameson’s umbrella allowed him to float for a while as well, so they travelled on the roofs and stayed unnoticed), all of those who knew the real Gems – Felix, Signe, Amy, Ethan, Sammy and Grayson – were there. Excellent. Seven children (including two half-bloods, for Sammy and Grayson were half-humans and half-gems – children of Brown Diamond’s (aka Jack of Diamonds) charge Chase Brody) and lots of benign aliens against the big cruel world, Mark thought.  
“People outside are going plain crazy,” Felix informed. “Someone state that it’s just a solar eclipse, most state that those are aliens… I mean evil aliens… and some yell that it’s the end of the world.”  
“The end of the world would’ve been much less dramatic.” Black Diamond in his human image (the Diamonds usually stayed like that to avoid confusing situations, for their real height was enormous) crossed his arms. For some reason he was frowning more than his pals, Brown and Cognac Diamonds. “Judging by its expansion, it should be some kind of force field, but it should be scanned to make sure. Google, what is the farthest distance from it where the correct data can be collected?”  
“The roof of the tallest building in the town should work,” Google replied.  
“But how are you going to get there?” Sammy asked.  
“I wish it was the only problem,” Edward sighed. “Google won’t be able to run the proper scanning on his own. We’ve already found out that the probability of getting correct results grows to 99.99% if Google, S34N and Logan work together.”  
“And zeir superpower is zeir mind and databasez, not spy skillz,” Schneep added.  
“Can’t Jameson bring them there one by one?” Mark asked. “He did bring me here…”  
[MY UMBRELLA CANNOT COVER TWO OF US,] Jameson stated. [IT CAN COVER ME AND SOMEONE SMALL, LIKE YOU, BUT NOT TWO GROWN PERSONS.]  
“Mr. Host, I hate to be a bother, but Dark told me you can see the future,” Amy recalled. “Can you predict the events now?”  
“Amy is right, but the Host cannot see it clearly now. He sees certain versions of the future, and there is no exact one,” the Host replied. “The Host is afraid the Gems will have to use logic more than future visions.”  
“Distraction may be reliable,” Grayson supposed. “I mean, all those people may be distracted from the tallest building, and GSL can get there in no time!”  
“GSL?” Anti asked.  
“Google, S34N, Logan,” Grayson explained.  
“I can try,” Yan interfered. “My charming voice is able to distract anyone and make them forget anything!”  
“I don’t think it’s going to work, Yan,” Jack of Diamonds objected. “Everyone’s panicking and not in the mood for listening to music.”  
Yan seemed to be a bit offended, but eventually he agreed.  
“So, if they think it’s an alien ship… aliens would be an option,” Ethan offered. “Big bad aliens… Hey, I think you can transform. Can you create anything creepy crawly out of yourselves?”  
“Our transformation range is limited,” Cognac Diamond said. “We can change our skin tone and all to pretend to be humans, but nothing more…”  
“Hold on a second! Mr. Host! When you tell stories, you make sure that they are about things that do not happen, right? What if you tell a story about one of us transforming into a monster and then back?” Amy asked.  
The Host rubbed his chin, pondering over the statement.  
“Yes, that could work, but the transformed one needs to control it,” he replied. “It may be tried.”  
“Has anyone been talking about creepy crawly stuff?” Virgil got into the front row. “Try me! I could become, I don’t know, a big bad human spider!”  
“Is Virgil sure? The Host’s story may run amok,” the Host warned.  
“I’ve always dreamed of becoming a monster and scaring everyone!” Virgil burst into laughter, having made his so-called brothers Patton and Roman exchange worried glances. “No worries, no one will be harmed!”  
After a short argument this option was agreed upon, although with a little correction: Warfstache was told to cause as much strange noises as possible to increase the distraction effect (he more than happily agreed to do so), provided that he would stay unnoticed, for most inhabitants of the town had seen him. Dark had been seen too, that’s why he couldn’t participate although his appearance suggested aliens more than anything. The Host and Virgil left to the Temple Room to run the transformation, and the effect was more than stunning. In his new image Virgil gained eight giant spider legs sprouting from his back, eight purple eyes and sharp teeth in addition (and his skin was definitely human instead of his usual pale purple).  
“Spider-Man, Spider-Man does whatever a spider can,” he sang all of a sudden, having made the children snort with laughter: his careless tone ran counter to his now eerie appearance. “Thanks Host! That’s even cooler than I thought!”  
“Yes, that’s… impressive,” Roman admitted. “But there’s another issue. How are you going to come out? Someone may see where you came from, and that won’t be good for us.”  
“I’ll go first, I’ll go first, I’ll go first!” Warfstache chattered. “I’ll distract everyone and you’ll get into the scene! Maybe more? Maybe… Spider-Patton?”  
“Ew!” Patton yelped. “Sorry Virgil, but you know that I hate spiders!”  
“But you love me,” Virgil sassily replied and let out a hiss to test his scary voice abilities. “No, that’s not going to work. S-s-s… S-s-s…”  
“Hey, wait!”  
Everyone turned their heads to Shawn, who had been keeping quiet all this time.  
“I can support Virge an’ Wilfy,” he suggested. “I can hide and add ink effects to yer entrance, Virge. Waddaboutit? No one will see me, ha!”  
“Cool!” Virgil’s face lit up. “But we need to cooperate… and I still can’t use those…”  
While he was occupied with learning how to operate his new limbs and Shawn was manipulating his ink in the air to practice, Cognac Diamond summed it up:  
“Right. Virgil, Shawn and Warfstache shoo the curious ones away from the destination while Google, Logan and S34N get there. I think we need someone to back them up too. Jackie, Remy and Kingie should fit for the job. Remy, I’ve heard you kept the stash of that sleeping potion, remember? Is that true?”  
“Yeah, there should be some,” Remy approved, honoured that he was finally paid attention to.  
“Take some. Just in case of undesired witnesses.” Then Cognac Diamond turned to the children. “But every group will need a human member in case if we get destabilized. Mark, you’ll go with GSL. Signe, you’ll stay with Shawn. Sammy, you’ll watch over Jackie, Kingie and Remy.”

“Nobody’s around. Come on,” Mark called out and scampered forward. Google, S34N and Logan followed him while nobody was around. Judging by the yelps and screams that were heard from somewhere aside, Virgil was having the time of his life, as well as Warfstache… maybe. He had been strictly told to cause havoc without causing too much damage, and that must’ve taken the good portion of fun away. Shawn’s ink patterns on the walls were working too, for no one risked approaching them – Mark has seen it along the way.  
His optimism was almost gone when he saw that the entrance to the tallest building in the town was closed. Of course. It’s not a damn videogame where everything is open, Mark thought to himself… but that was when the information pros stepped it.  
“Are you sure it’s going to work?” S34N asked. “The previous time they vanished in midair.”  
“I remember it, S34N,” Google droned coldly. “I have been practicing. This time it is going to work…” He closed his eyes and concentrated. Then his shadow seemingly came to life, making a step to the side. No, that was not a shadow – it was a carbon copy of Google except for wearing a shirt of different color (red) and having a mat-colored gem. But this one was not alone: two more clones appeared, one in yellow, the other in green shirt.  
“Cool,” Logan said. “Are they going to stay here for long?”  
“Watch this,” Google sneered. The clones lost no time repeating the process, and in a minute about two dozen of replicas were gathered around the original one (the only one whose shirt was blue). “Well, what are you waiting for? Make a living ladder for us, you dimwits!”  
The ‘dimwits’ vanished as soon as three gems and a human boy were on the roof (Mark rode the way on S34N’s back). Immediately, the gems set off to action, having opened their information screens. Mark even felt a bit offended: they could’ve coped without him… but this statement was proven to be false within a few minutes.  
“Height determined,” S34N informed.  
“Coordinates locked on,” Google added.  
“Seems to be protected,” Logan finished. The other two gems stared at him. “There’s some kind of a shield around the source. No wonder. And on the basis of its frequency… oh no, not the destabilizing field! Clever! Very clever!”  
“What is it?” Mark asked.  
“It’s the same field that was used when our Diamonds were hidden by Remus and Deceit,” S34N explained. “It momentarily poofs any Gems if they contact it.”  
“Excellent,” Mark sighed. “But you’ve locked on the target. Can you… I don’t know… throw a bomb at them?”  
“You played too many video games,” Logan cut off. “One: the destabilizing field also provides protection from our weapons. Two: even if we used human weapons like rockets, they could damage the device keeping the shield which blocks the sky, and there would be a trouble of restoring it.”  
“Okay.”  
“So what about something that’s neither a Gem nor a weapon?” Google suddenly asked. Logan and S34N stared at him. “When Anti, Bim and Marvin went on a mission to retrieve our Diamonds, they could not approach the window where they were hidden, but Felix could.”  
Mark, realizing that it was the only sensible option, braced himself – the information pros were weak when it came to delicacy or politeness. But they were not going to fulfill their plan by themselves: S34N opened his communication screen, and Marvin’s face with a red fringe appeared at it.  
“Marvin, we need you here. Arrive as soon as you can,” S34N stated, as if recording a voice message. “How is the distraction working?”  
“Fantastic! Now I see why Virgil likes those horror movies so much!” Marvin beamed. He must’ve been telling the truth because he used his fiery wings to arrive – any other day he would’ve been noticed.  
“We have determined the coordinates. It’s the top of that rock.” S34N pointed at the tall rock sticking from the sea quite far away from the shore. “But it’s blocked with a destabilizing field, which means no entry for Gems. Google supposes that a human can enter.”  
“Well, well, well. I remember that Felix helped us during a similar case, but finding him would be a bother now. He’s busy filming the effects, and he shouldn’t think he’s one and only Gem rescuer.” Marvin smirked, but his expression quickly changed to serious. “Mark, do you understand what that means?”  
“I understood it before you arrived,” Mark replied.  
“All right. I’ll bring you to that rock and make sure you enter, but promise me to be sensible. Here!” Marvin tossed a small pentagonal earpiece to him, and Mark set it. “I’ll bring you there and make sure everyone will hear what will be going on. Promise you won’t get into… much trouble.”  
“You have my word, Marvin.”

Mark had to choke back an excited yell when he was sent flying towards the only entrance to the space after Marvin let him go in midflight. Thank goodness his aim was exact, and the boy did not crash into anything. However, the fall ended in not the best way: even though Mark didn’t even notice the barrier which could’ve poofed any Gem, he slid on the floor, having torn off the skin on his knees and palms. In addition, he kicked up dust and had a fit of coughing.  
The reason of the field covering the sky was right there. It was a male-looking Gem, but it was the strangest Gem possible – and Mark had already been introduced to Gem types and forms (Google had kindly provided him the materials from his database). This one had the face of one of Black Diamond’s charges and a similar hairstyle, but he seemingly had mirrors instead of eyes. In addition, his colors of choice were black and white, so the borderline between his white tee and skin could hardly be noticed. His striped pants reminded Mark of a stereotypical prison uniform, and his square gem, striped as well, was located on the left side of his neck, almost under his ear – and it seemed to be cracked. He was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the space and operating a huge round platform – something like a modified keyboard – in front of him.  
“So that’s you,” Mark stated. The Gem paid no attention, only gnawed on his bottom lip in concentration. “Can you hear me? Stop it!”  
No reaction.  
“On behalf of the Black Diamond I’m ordering you to stop!” Mark ordered. This time it seemed to work: the Gem’s fingers dancing over the keys paused for a split second, but then went on even faster. “Yes, Black Diamond! You’re causing panic, and he doesn’t like it!”  
This time it didn’t cause any response, so Mark, not thinking twice, attempted to snatch the keyboard, but the Gem reacted momentarily, having grabbed its edges. Mark forced himself not to turn away when the mirror eyes under frowned black brows stared at him without blinking.  
“I mean it,” Mark gasped. “Black Diamond’s not happy…”  
“Liar,” the Gem snapped. “Liar.”  
“Cross my heart,” Mark panted. “I know Black Diamond. And Cognac Diamond, and Brown Diamond…”  
“Liar,” the Gem repeated.  
“Ah, I forgot that Brown likes to be called Jack of Diamonds… Anyway, PLEASE stop it!”  
Mark knew that what he was doing was stupid, but breaking the keyboard would be even more stupid: it could make the field stuck without any chance to remove it.  
“Gone.” It seemed like the Gem could only use singular words to communicate.  
“Not gone. I’ve seen them,” Mark replied, praying that this senseless tug of war would end soon. “I can prove if only you stop that field from spreading!”  
“Liar!” the Gem yelped and tugged on the keyboard so strongly that Mark fell head over heels.  
“You’re not giving me any chance to finish!”  
“Deserve.”  
And then Mark did something very courageous and dumb at the same time: as soon as the Gem was concentrated on typing again, he jumped onto his back and grabbed on his gem in an outrageous hope that he would tear it out of his body. It definitely did not work as intended, but at least the Gem got distracted from his work again. This time Mark managed to make him furious.  
Dammit, he’s strong, Mark thought, holding on the Gem’s neck while he was madly twirling in attempts to throw the annoying little human off. The kid must’ve been almost weightless for him, judging by his motions.  
“Listen to me!” Mark yelled into the ear of the Gem. No results. “LISTEN TO ME!!!”  
Poof!  
It took Mark about quarter a minute to realize that he was sitting on the ground and the Gem was gone from sight – only the black-and-white square item with a crack in a middle stayed there. The next moment enormous feet clad in boots with star patterns touched the ground in front of him. Must be another fusion, Mark decided: the newcomer was even taller than Dark and had four eyes and four arms as well, although those were located differently than Dark’s: one pair was growing from shoulders, as required, and the other one – from the waist area. The primary colors of their outfit were black, dark brown and red.  
“Marvin? Jackie? Are those you?” Mark marveled, having spotted the locations and shapes of their gems.  
“Eagle eye. Red Quartz, to be precise,” the fusion smirked and juggled their weapons: swords with strange handles (those definitely were the combos of Jackie’s knuckles and Marvin’s wand). “Did that weirdo hurt you?”  
“N-no, I’m just a bit… dizzy, that’s all,” Mark mumbled, standing up and picking up the discarded keyboard.  
“No wonder. We’ve seen it. While you were distracting him, we took control over the destabilizing field and shrunk it,” Red Quartz explained. “It didn’t influence you, but poofed that… whoever he is. Wait, he’s cracked? That makes something clear, but not everything.”  
“Did you really have to fuse?” Mark asked, not knowing why he did it.  
“In this form we are times as powerful. And, trust me, both Jackie and Marvin know a thing or two about force fields and destabilizers.” Red Quartz gave Mark a wink with their right eyes and knelt, allowing Google, Logan and S34N, who appeared to be sitting on their back, get off. “Do you think you can deal with that barrier?”  
“Piece of holographic cake,” S34N replied, taking the keyboard from Mark.  
“We will let you know when we’re finished,” Logan added.  
“But I think you’ll see the signal,” Google finished.  
“Excellent. Do we need to wait for you?”  
“No worries. We will teleport back,” Logan assured. “I’ve recently added some new functions to our screens.”  
“All right then.” Red Quartz leaned down, examining the abandoned gem. “So, this is the reason of all these disorders? Damaged?” They sighed. “No wonder that they tried this insane idea out. Only a creature of unsound mind would do so… Let’s bring them home. The Diamonds should know what to do with them. Get on, Mark, but be careful, don’t get burnt.”  
Not getting burnt was one problem. Another one was not falling off, for Red Quartz’s back, although wide, had nothing to hold on (no wonder), so Mark had to crawl to their neck and latch onto it. He couldn’t state that the flight back was more pleasant than the previous one, although Red Quartz did their best to keep it steady and smooth.  
“There you are! Those cyborgs!”  
Mark opened his eyes (he didn’t realize that he closed them along the way) and slid off Red Quartz, who lost no time dividing into Marvin and Jackie. They were at the Gems’ home, and almost all of them were here, including Virgil, whose appearance had almost returned to his usual (the Host was soundlessly muttering something to him – perhaps ending his story that had made Virgil become ‘Spider-Virge’), Warfstache and Shawn, as well as humans: Felix was showing Sammy and Grayson the recording made with his camera.  
The world outside was getting lighter, for the barrier was visibly shrinking every second.  
“Although they’re cyborgs, they know what they do,” Jackie admitted. “Now all we have to do is wait. Again… You sure you’re okay, Mark? Amy was worried sick about you, as well as someone else.”  
“I promise I’m okay, guys, just a little scratched,” Mark replied. “That jerk got nothing on me.”  
“What jerk?” Jack of Diamonds asked. “Who was the reason? Don’t tell me it was about the supreme Diamonds or their agents.”  
“Not Diamonds, he was too small to be one. But as about agents… dunno.” Mark produced his ‘trophy’ from his pocket and showed it.  
To everyone’s astonishment, the first one who reacted was Eric.  
“Onyx?!” he gasped, carefully getting hold of the cracked gem. “No way, it’s Onyx! How… oh… w-wake up, Onyx, wake up…”  
“He won’t wake if you just talk to him,” Edward reminded. “Let me see… Damaged, but no holes. Could’ve been worse. Should be restored in no time… Eric?”  
“N-no,” Eric replied, covering the gem with his hands. “I will restore him. I have to.”  
“I’m afraid he’s right,” Black Diamond approved. “And I also have to tell you something. As you may know, not all my creations were successful.” At this moment he glimpsed at Dark, who was still as a statue, one pair of hands folded on the top of his cane and face completely indifferent. “At first I could not figure out the molecule proportions, and I had to use my own, so it took time to restore them and limited my abilities before I was solid again. When the way to improve this process was found – thank you very much, Edward – I launched a whole bunch of experimental Gems, each of which was a little bit different from the previous. It was like a word puzzle where you have to replace one letter with another to form new words and eventually get something completely different. The first one in the line was Onyx, and the sixteenth was…”  
“Me,” Eric realized. “I… remember… Onyx… he was with me b-before… What happened to the rest fourteen?”  
“They did not survive the supreme Diamonds’ attempt to destroy my creations. I’ve seen them shatter,” Black Diamond confessed. “I guess they turned out faulty. Too fragile or something, now nobody is able to tell. Frankly, I was more than astounded when you came along, Eric… All this time I thought that all sixteen of the line were gone, but it turns out that Onyx was merely damaged and not demolished, as well as you.”  
“It-it only proves that it is I who sh-should restore him,” Eric insisted. “My Diamond? Wh-what is going on?”  
Black Diamond did not reply, only turned around and vanished in the Temple Room.  
“I guess he’s feeling guilty,” Bim supposed. “No wonder. I would also feel guilty if something like that happened to me!..”  
“The horror, the horror,” the Jims said simultaneously, having added even more creeps to the tense atmosphere, and pushed the present Gems and humans away from Eric, possibly to give him some space. Mark didn’t spot what Eric did, but the results were obvious: the crack on the damaged gem slowly shrunk and soon was gone, and soon after that it let the carrier out. His black and white colors did not go anywhere, and the only significant change was his eyes which turned black. At least they weren’t mirrors anymore.  
“Onyx? Can you hear me? It’s me, Snowflake Obsidian,” Eric mumbled. After staring at him from under his eyebrows for some seconds, Onyx cupped Eric’s cheek with his right hand and moved his thumb along it, stopping on the white spot resembling cartoony blush.  
“No, Snowflake, youse not a phantom, for sure,” he said hoarsely. “That’s fair. A pure soul like youse ain’t deserves being shattered.” He examined the ones surrounding here. “So, youse were ain’t the only one? Turquoise… Almandine… Topazolite… Biotite… Citrine…” He blinked and sat up, his attention riveted on Dark. “Neptunite? Zoisite and Rhodolite did survive?”  
“As you can see, they’re right here,” Dark cut off, drumming on his cane top with his fingers.  
“But… if youse all here and Neptunite is as well, it means… Where am I?”  
“Planet Earth,” Bing informed, glad to answer at least one question.  
“Have I fallen asleep? Because… last thing I remember is… the ones between me and Snowflake…” Onyx imitated an explosion. “Where have I been all this time? Where have youse been? And most importantly… where’s my Diamond?”  
“Right here, Onyx.” Black Diamond had returned without a warning, still keeping his human image. Onyx’s face twitched, but then he relaxed, having realized that one of the distinguishing features of Diamonds – rhombus-shaped pupils – was there. “I need to apologize. I was the reason of your siblings’ demise.”  
“No, my Diamond,” Onyx objected and made the ‘diamond’ gesture. “It was the supreme one. She was the one that did not allow youse to finish in the first place. But now she’s not here if all of youse are alive and well.” He stood up. “Guess all I have now is Snowflake, and I swear I won’t let anything happen to him. Will youse allow me to stay, my Diamond?”  
“I definitely will,” Black Diamond nodded, suppressing a relieved smile. “Although we here have some rules for the inhabitants of this planet not to grow suspicious. Yes, some of them know who we are and are okay with it,” he patted Signe’s and Ethan’s shoulders, “but most of them may be not. You’ll need a name.”  
“Choosing the name is funny,” Yan interfered. “I got mine because I look like a local fictional character! Yan! That’s me!”  
“Yan?” Onyx parroted, confused. “I see… Are all names this short?”  
In fifteen minutes he memorized all the names and was attempting to use them instead of the Gem names (it must’ve been the same with memorizing proper Gem names for a human, Mark thought, for he had trouble keeping all those ‘neptunites’ and ‘chalcedonies’ in mind – at least ‘topazes’ and ‘turquoises’ were easier).  
“Say, you could be named Sherlock,” Anti slyly suggested. “Because you were ‘locked’ in for so long!”  
“NAH!” Onyx lolled his tongue out.  
“Or Rick,” Roman put in. “Because you may have tricks up your sleeve.”  
“Too short,” Onyx snapped. “Are there any… more elaborate names, I dunno?”  
“Yancy,” Eric suddenly stated. “Yan – I – see. That’s what you said. I think that fits you.”  
“Aww, Snowflake, ain’t youse a doll?.. Then… what is youse name?”  
“Eric. Eric Derekson.”  
“That’s… a great name.” Onyx – now Yancy – repeated the name of his ‘little brother’ four or five times, as if tasting it. “But still… why is everyone staring at me?”  
Felix, his mouth curved so much that it almost reached his ears, silently showed him the recording he had made, having rewound it to the moment of the barrier in the sky expanding. Yancy’s jaw dropped.  
“Youse mean… I did it? I… I honestly don’t remember! I swear?”  
“We’ve understood that you don’t remember it because you were damaged,” the monotonous voice droned from the farther end of the room. That was Logan, who had teleported back together with S34N and Logan seconds ago. “We’re more interested in WHY you did it. The Earthlings did nothing to you.”  
“Leave it to me.” Schneep approached to Yancy, released his scalpel and moved it along the edge of his gem, then opened his screen similar to Google’s. “Aha. Pure psychology, more like inztinktz, I guezz. You zpent too much time locked up after that dizazter, but a part of you wanted to ezcape, and finally this part took over. But when you found yourzelf out in the open, it seemed wrong to you, zo… you did your bezt to make the sky ztone.”  
“Jeepers, that logic is even worse than the Jims’ logic,” Felix murmured. “But that’s a damn good idea for a movie…”  
“FELIX!” Sammy, Grayson and Jackie yelped at the same time.  
“I mean, Virgil’s gonna be one of the stars,” Felix stroke his camera as if it was a kitten, “and why should I leave someone who knows so many special effects behind?”  
“V-Virgil? Stars?” Yancy parroted, not understanding anything that he was on about.  
“Ah, stripes and pipes, you’re really no fun,” Felix sighed.

**Author's Note:**

> This one, as well as other works in this AU, are based on works by https://www.deviantart.com/sifferko  
> Image references:  
> 1) Red Quartz and their weapon: fav.me/dd335fd and fav.me/dd335oc  
> 2) "Spider-Virge": fav.me/ddiahpy
> 
> Also, I ADORE the idea of Yancy being Eric's oldest brother (I found it in one of the fics, but I don't remember which one). And I chose Onyx for him because it is believed to be a power stone able to help the carrier take charge of their destiny (in other words, be responsible for their actions) - and also because of its usual black-and-white colors and striped patterns.


End file.
